A loggerhead sea turtle waits for release back into the wild after it was rehabilitated in Florida last year.

A loggerhead sea turtle waits for release back into the wild after it was rehabilitated in Florida last year.

Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images

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Hubbs-Seaworld researchers release a loggerhead sea turtle into the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2000. Senior research biologist Scott Eckert, right, watches. The transmitter attached to the shell will enable researchers to track the turtle's progress back to Japan. (AP Photo/Bob Grieser) less

Hubbs-Seaworld researchers release a loggerhead sea turtle into the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2000. Senior research biologist Scott Eckert, right, watches. The transmitter attached to the ... more

Photo: Bob Grieser, Associated Press

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Loggerhead sea turtle lawsuit

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Conservation groups have sued the Obama administration in San Francisco to protect the habitat of the loggerhead sea turtle, a long-migrating, 250-pound reptile that is being depleted by fishing and water pollution.

The government placed the Pacific loggerhead on the endangered-species list in September 2011 and was legally required to designate critical habitat within a year, said the suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The Pacific turtles swim 7,000 miles between nesting areas in Japan and feeding grounds off Southern California and Mexico, and occasionally venture into Bay Area waters.

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The suit also seeks habitat protection for the Atlantic loggerhead, which nests in Florida and is listed as a threatened species.

"Loggerheads need robust protection from fisheries, oil spills and climate change to reverse their trajectory toward extinction," said Teri Shore of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, which is a plaintiff in the suit.

Another suit by the same organizations in 2007 led to the government's endangered-species listing for the Pacific loggerheads four years later.

Biologists say the population of Pacific turtles has declined by at least 80 percent over the last decade. The conservation groups said more than 1,000 are killed each year by gill net fishing in Mexico, and their foraging habitat is being destroyed by abandoned fishing gear, marine debris, water pollution and ocean acidification.

The groups said critical-habitat designations would protect the turtles' feeding and nesting areas from power plants and oil and gas drilling that require federal permits.